MERELY INAPROPRIATE? In the olden days, some behaviors were truly inappropriate, e.g. letting out a huge burp in the midst of a public gathering. Other behaviors were clearly thought to be morally wrong, e.g. cheating and stealing. Then the 1960’s came along and well-meaning trendsetters incorrectly began to label almost every unseemly act as "inappropriate." Give me a break! To call fraud, rape, physical abuse, damaging property, etc. merely inappropriate is to fancy a false view of reality. Some behaviors ARE morally wrong, whether or not one believes in God. If done knowingly and willingly, God-believers may rightly called it sin. The secular world, however, in attempting to avoid religious terms goes beyond what it has to to be politically correct. From a simply human perspective, some behaviors violate basic human moral standards and need to be called such. Correctly distinguishing the inappropriate from the immoral is critical for the common good of humanity. (JEF)
A natural and necessary thing to do –explore the meaning of love, commitment, maturity, intimacy, infatuation, and more. Here are some points to ponder in the process: 1) Don’t underestimate the life-changing consequence in the leap from friend to lover. It is major! There is little likelihood of turning back. 2) One of the primary tasks for adolescents is to learn how to be a friend, to experience closeness in human relationships, to satisfy the hunger for intimacy. Intimacy means closeness, feeling at one with another. Grow your friendships by sharing your mind (intellectual intimacy), by sharing your feelings (emotional), your hunches, anxieties, fears (psychological), your life principles and values (moral), your search for God (spiritual), your faith (religious), the beauty of the arts and Nature (aesthetic). The simplest dimension of intimacy is to share the same space together(physical intimacy). The least simple is genital intimacy which can have profound consequences and therefore requires a definite maturity. When premature, that is, outside of a marital commitment, it can derail the other dimensions, and even destroy intimacy itself. So, the wisdom of centuries of the Christian experience says wait until marriage before taking the leap from friend to lover. 3) What do you think? Are males generally built this way: they will play at love in order to get sex, while females will play at sex in order to get love? Males and females are created equal but marvelously different. 4) Our society is deep into the sexualization of women. How do adolescents girls (and guys) survive the onslaught? Adolescents are by nature vulnerable to sexual pressure. It helps to choose friends wisely, friends who share moral and religious values, and who desire to seek out the genuine meaning of human intimacy and love and the place of sex within the context of love and marriage.